JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Train service proposal linking Iowa City and North Liberty is all stop

By Paul D. Bowker
Posted 2/5/25

IOWA CITY

The dream of a rail service connecting the University of Iowa and Iowa City with North Liberty and Coralville had become so real that Lone Tree’s Jon Green, a Johnson County …

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JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Train service proposal linking Iowa City and North Liberty is all stop

Posted

IOWA CITY

The dream of a rail service connecting the University of Iowa and Iowa City with North Liberty and Coralville had become so real that Lone Tree’s Jon Green, a Johnson County Supervisor, was among a group that traveled to Pennsylvania last summer to get a close look at Pop-Up Metro.

He even piloted one of the trains.

The service, which would have been produced through a pilot project with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based Pop-Up Metro and its battery-powered trains, would have linked an eight-mile portion of Johnson County using existing CRANDIC rail lines.

The deal may now be dead.

Or at least on life support.

“It looks like all the different options for train service between Iowa City and North Liberty are pretty much on hold for now,” said Supervisor Rod Sullivan, who attended a meeting of the Metropolitian Planning Organization of Johnson County and heard the news. “Just because they seem to have changed their minds. That’s disappointing to hear, but we’ll just have to move on from there.”

The initial proposal, a three-year pilot program, was first presented to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors last June. The cost to the county was estimated at about $2 million.

Fed Headaches

Recent executive actions by President Donald Trump, including the attempted freezing of federal funds, have hit back at local governments in what Johnson County Chair Jon Green described “akin to phoning in a bomb threat.”

“I would beseech our national leaders to do the right thing,” Green said during the Board’s Jan. 30 formal session. “That doesn’t necessarily mean to take action I would politically agree with, but to govern with some semblance of sanity.”

Actions against trans and LGBTQ communities have hit hard, and among the trans residents in Johnson County is Supervisor V Fixmer-Oraiz.

“In this moment, we must ask ourselves who we are,” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “I am still here. I will always be here. I will always be who I am.”

Green has been deeply reflective of current affairs and quickly realized something.

“I spent the first week of the Trump Administration looking around to see who was going to lead us,” Green told The News. “And then I looked in the mirror.”

Jailhouse Blues

Longtime Supervisor Rod Sullivan is this year’s county liaison to the City of Hills, and he attended a recent city meeting in which questions surfaced about the status of Johnson County’s aging jail.

The questions at this point are unanswered as Johnson County has entered into conversations with Iowa City about sharing a new jail with the city. If the county and city do decide to build a new jail together, the finances of how that would work out is not yet known.

Johnson County is considering $3.6 million in repairs to the current jail over the next year while at the same time a joint feasibility study has been proposed at a cost of more than $60,000.

Board Action

The Board approved an agreement, at a maximum of $51,365, with OPN Architects for site evaluation and project feasibility services for the planned Dr. Lulu Merle Johnson exhibit that will be built on the county’s government campus in Iowa City.

The Board appointed Ben Kayser of Iowa City to the Compensation Board.

The Board issued proclamations in honor of American Heart Month, February, and World Hijab Day, Feb. 1.

Next meeting:

The Board’s next formal session is at 9 a.m. February 6.

CRANDIC, train service, Johnson County, Board of Supervisors, Jon Green